Post-Wedding 2: Flowers.

I realized now that I have so many posts that is overdue and happened like more than 2 months ago, so here I am trying my best to squeeze all the brain juice that's left to speed it all up. Heh. 

I will admit that for the first time in my life, I pinterest-ed "perfect wedding flowers" just about less than 3 months before the wedding. I am not a flower kind of girl and if everything were up to me, there would be no flowers seen on the bid day. Hah. But Koay wants some flowers so okay. 

There are so many great photos on Pinterest but I only had my eyes on roses and baby breaths. 

I didn't really like how the combination of both flowers are like, so that means I had to choose one. 

I really like roses, and I really like baby breaths and I really don't want to combine both, not separately or together in a bouquet. 

After quick thinking (since flowers could cost a bomb in weddings), I decided to go for baby breaths. Roses are expensive but I've learnt through this wedding that baby breaths are equally as expensive, if not more. They are apparently seasonal, so yay to us that we're in their season! 

For other flowers-decoration-purpose, I left that decision with Uncle Phillip because his eyes is far better than mine. So, what he says, we'll go for it. 

My flower-related-decision was only on my main bouquet, flower-girls headpiece and what my maids were going to hold as they walked down the aisle before me. Once upon a time, I pictured each of them holding one KFC drumstick instead of mini bouquet of baby breaths, serious I kid you not. 

But I really like roses too okay seriously and I would need some kind of 'things' to be thrown at the newlyweds after they till death do us part and walk down the aisle together. 

Why not rose petals then, the brain thought. Heh. 

So yes, in the end, I managed to have both roses and baby breaths on our big day. Win all. 

All my baby breaths bouquet were handmade by a dear friend of Uncle Phillip who is no longer an active florist as she's now a proud and busy grandmother of 2 :) Thank you Aunty Louisa! She also gave us one (1) big bag of different colored rose petals that I feel have helped soften the wedding decoration :)

The way the baby breaths were tied together was inspired by Pinterest of course and it was perfect :)

Here are some photos of the baby breaths and rose petals that were captured beautifully :)

Here's a quick tip on how you can save cost on flowers. I always feel that spending so much on flowers very useless because they will die at the end of the day and they are just a one-day-thing for the decor. There are so many other things that you can use to substitute the flowers, like umm.. Okay, maybe you cannot really replace flowers with anything else that gives the similar feel, but you can strategically choose/use them. Here's what I learn from my wedding. 

Choose flowers that you can use for the lunch/dinner reception. 

For me, it was easy because I re-used all the baby breaths' bouquet. I did not want to carry my bridal bouquet anymore so we transformed that into a headpiece that my amazing makeup artist, Sam used and did for my hair. 

For the mini bouquets, we took out bits and pieces of it and lay it on the reception tables. Same goes with the petals. 

Write down on a paper

For my case, I bought too little. Heh. I missed out one baby breaths head-piece for Vanessa, so if you see properly right, instead of a headpiece, she only had a few pieces of baby breaths on the side of her head. Heh. 

I should have written down all the names of those who will be involved with the flowers and what they are supposed to receive, but lazy me just remember all in the head. Padan muka I. 

In your case, you could end up paying extra for the 'too much' so be more hardworking than me okay. 

Discuss with the groom-to-be

This one helps a lot. 

I feel men with their "MONEY IS FIRST PRIORITY" focus, they are someow able to talk us into getting flowers only when its necessary. 

Like the whole idea of not having roses and baby breaths together was his idea actually. He thought that it would save a lot of $$ and he was indeed right. 

He would asked me questions like, "You really want them together?" or "Do you think that maybe you actually just like one?"

Questions that made me think deeply. Heh. 

So ladies if I may, discuss this with your huz-to-be for they may say something that made sense once in a while. Hah. Thank you Hun :) 

I hope you will have a great time planning your big day, be it a wedding, 21st birthday or a get-together party. It's all good :)

Bye now.

Our Little Love Nest.

Our room is obviously already 100% live-able since we've been staying in here for more than a month - close to 2 months now. I somehow forgot to post on the final product because of all the hoo-haas on the wedding.

Anyways, while waiting for me to finish choosing the wedding photos (and upload them here) and a wedding video, here's a perfect time to show you guys how our little comfort zone looks like now.

There is only one problem though.

Ever since the new set of wooden furniture were moved in, our room has this kind of smell that is not all too bad but it isn't very pleasing to the nose either.

We have tried using all kind of make-the-room-smells-good-method like heating up the fragrant oil using a mini bowl thing, used Lampe Berger, used fragrant sprays and leaving the room door open with fan switched on whole day.

BUT ALL ALSO CANNOT GET RID OF THE SMELL.

It has some sour-y smell with wooden and it's been there since we moved in.

If anyone of you knows of anything that can help us get rid of the smell, PLEASE LET US KNOW! We are very desperate.

So, besides the whole smell thing, our love nest is perfect.

The bed is obviously the most comfortable thing in the room. The moment anyone lies down on it, confirm you get good sleep okay. The other day we lay Daryl down on the bed and he sleeps like a baby. Hah.

Without further ado, here it is.

Now that we've been in there for close to 2 months now, it's finally 98% complete with our little touches here and there. 

Let's see the before and after photos shall we. 

FROM THE MAIN DOOR

FROM THE (current) MAKE-UP TABLE

 FROM THE TOILET DOOR 

Our safe place :)

Bye now. 

Post Wedding 1: Fake Eyelashes.

We have thousands of photos to go through and select those that we like, so do bear with us as we find time to upload them okay.

Our first challenge was getting a laptop that has a DVD reader in it and we finally got to borrow an external DVD reader from the seven-months-to-go-groom-to-be, Nehemiah.

We have four CDs to copy all these images from, and boy so many photos to see!

While I wait for the photos to be copied over, I shall share with you guys girls/bride-to-be on this one thing that sort of bothered me during my wedding day.

Yes, it's exactly what the title says.

Fake eyelashes.

I do not wear fake lashes on normal days. I think in my entire life, I have only worn like for a few times only and other than the fact that they make your eyes feel heavier, they are actually fine.

On my wedding day, my makeup artist, Sam puts on the fake lashes on my eyes and it felt normal. As heavy as I remembered it would be.

It didn't bother me until when she puts on the veil over my head and face.

It was a struggle and the struggle was real.

I could not open my eyes when the veil was over my face. It was so difficult for me to open my eyes without my hands pushing the veil from the inside.

I cannot be pushing the veil from inside everytime I blink, right? Especially not when I walk down the aisle. The only way to handle this is not to blink as often.

The many years of cannot-blink-or-you-lose game with buddies finally have its use afterall. Heh.

So, that's basically what I did until the man opens my veil and I felt alive awake again.

My eyes were like half-closed most of the time okay! It's impossible to have my eyes opened normally because the veil was heavy on the lashes.

I even asked Sam to trim off some of the lashes because they were probably too long. She said if she were to cut some more, then my own real lashes would be gone too.

G.

You see the photos below and you will know what I mean.

Those long eyelashes. This version that she gave me was supposedly the shortest version and I wanted shorter so that it will look more realistic. 

Once the veil goes down, my eyes went down too. Hah. 

Brides who have been through this, I feel you, and for brides to be, I don't know what is the solution to this. I'm sorry. 

I had to tilt my head down so that I don't feel the pressure of the veil pressing towards my eyelids, that actually made me feel as though the fake lashes were going to fall off.

Or I had to tilt it higher than normal if I want to look at people's face or the screen during worship, or Ben when he was sharing. I got photos to prove this point, but I'll just share one. Hah.

Oh, and I did mention about it being heavy right? So, some photos, you can actually see my eyes like half-opened but the truth was I was trying so hard to make my eyes fully-opened. G. 

I dare not move when the fake lashes were not touching the veil, but that made my neck hurts so boo. 

Look at this photo below! My eyes were like half-closing already. So are Vanessa's. Maybe she sleepy la. 

Oh look! She slept already! Tough being the maid of honor okay please. Or maybe her fake lashes also too heavy for her eyes already.

Okay she's awake already. 

HAHAHA. 

I wouldn't recommend fake lashes to brides la, but then again, without it, your eyes won't look bigger so I also don't know what to do. 

 I cannot.

I looked at photos that shows my eyes like that I wanna pengsan!

The first thing I did when he lifted up my veil was I touched my lashes to make sure it doesn't come off with the veil. That would be a disaster!

Imagine the fake lashes stuck on the veil when he opens them. It would be a story to tell though. Hah.

So, here's a little sharing to spare me more time to sort out the photos and upload them sooooon.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Bye now. 

Four Cooking Needs.

Koay has been dropping little hints here and there about cooking. 

Hints that make one wonders if he's too afraid to tell directly to the face.

In one of our pre-marital counselling, we listed down all the expectations that we have of each other, and I remembered one that particularly made both of us and Pastor Cowan laughed was on cooking. 

His list:

I expect my wife to (try) cook meals at home. 

My list:

My husband will not ask me to cook.

Do note that we did not write these expectations knowing what each other was going to write. We wrote on it separately and then shared it with each other. 

So funny oh goodness. 

How like that?

I never have the liking towards cooking. Not since young, not since puberty and definitely not since engagement. So this was going to be a big problem for both of us. 

How to manage this expectation? 

We decided to try cooking at home at least once a week after work. So far, we've only tried once. Once was enough to make us wait for few weeks months before we should do another cooking session. 

By the time we finished cooking, it was close to 9pm, and the amount of $$$ spent on the ingredients summed up to about RM50. WHAT! With that money, we could have gone to Harvest Times and have a great complete set dinner each. So nope, not very practical at this point. 

Here are two of our cooking experiences together that I manage to blog about.

Koay's Chicken Spaghetti
Banana & Egg Pancake

Anyways, I tried to cook Green Curry Chicken Thai Style with recipe but of course, it didn't taste as good I was hoping it to be. 

I didn't give up okay. 

Few days later, I tried frying some marinated chicken breast fillet, and I got the whole kitchen area splattered with oil because the fillet was wet. Water in oil, not a very good combo. 

Then, I give up. Hah. 

I told Koay that I  don't like cooking and after trying a few times, I'm not going to be cooking for a while, unless you give me an oven, and I will cook all kinds of western meals for you. That won't be a problem. 

Growing up, my mom tends to cook more of western dishes than eastern so don't ask me to cook Belachan Fried Chicken because you will be beyond disappointed okay. 

I actually detoured from what I originally wanted to share here. Hah. 

After trying for a few times, I came up with a summary shopping list of things that a our kitchen needs in order for a better cooking experience I must say. Heh. 

Yes, Mr Adrian Koay, this is for you so take note. 

Here goes. 

A Food Processor

If I may represent my mother in law who is a fantastic cook, I would say that having a food processor will help in the food preparation. 

I've seen her waking up at 4am in the morning to start de-skinning them onions and garlic, chopping them into small pieces, and she usually does them in big bunch because usually these foods are prepared for a lot of people. 

So, with a food processor, all she needed to do is peel the raw items and throw them into the food processor and they do all the chopping for her by pushing the button a few times. 

Not only that, food processor can cut basically anything into small pieces. 

It can mince meat for you, mix all your pasta ingredients, grind cooked mushrooms to become mushroom soup (I kid you not because I've seen it when my mom does it), cuts your tomatoes and coriander to make salsa and grind nuts et cetera. 

I cannot think of a reason why we should not get a food processor, serious. Maybe this can be a potential Christmas gift to the house. Hmm. Not a bad idea huh. 

An Oven

This one I am speaking for myself. With an oven, I can make pizza, lasagna, shepherd's pie, bread, quiche, roast chicken/duck/pork and et cetera. 

I don't know how to yet but with an oven, I bet I can master all that in no time. 

I can even make homemade nuggets and cookies. Okay, maybe not cookies since baking is a big no-no. 

The point is I think an oven is one of the must-have in a kitchen. I bet out of 10 homes, 8 of them confirm got an oven at home. CONFIRM. 

That and I grew up having an oven at home, where I can just make healthy supper at night so it will be nice to have an oven at my new home now. Heh. 

A Garlic Press

My mom will roll her eyes at me if she sees this part of the whole post. She always think that it's faster to do it by hand, but a garlic press produces a pureed garlic and it's not the same as chopped garlic. 

I'm no Masterchef but I would think that a pureed garlic will release more aroma when it's cooked? I don't know la. I mean like for some foods, you need to have like puree kind of garlic. For example, do you know that if you mix pureed garlic into your mashed potatoes, it will taste heavenly? That is if you don't hate garlic. 

So, yeah. It would be nice to have this but then again, if you have the food processor, you actually don't have to get this anymore, but it will be nice to have this as one of the cooking tools. For show-off perhaps or to make the drawer not seem to empty. Hah.

Moving on. 

A Waffle Maker

This one is no brainer. Every house should have one of this so that we won't always spend RM4.90 whenever we go to the malls. 

With this at home, you can have it for breakfast and supper! How awesome huh. 

Now I know what you are thinking. It's going to be a waste because you will not be able to cook the entire waffle batter at one-go. 

Well, I just googled and good news for all you potential waffle-maker buyers, you can keep your waffle batter in the fridge to be used next time! Hah! 

This is a good investment if you want to create happiness at home, which is crucial, because if you are not happy at home, you will not be happy outside. Hah.

So let's choose happy and get a waffle-maker together. Maybe got more discounts if buy more than 1. 

That's all for now. 

I will let you all know when got sales on these kind of things okay. 

Bye now.